The Secret Life of Marrieds: A Couple That Proves Opposites Attract

Todd is 52 and Tatiana is 48; they've been married for almost 15 years.

How long were you together before you got married?Tatiana: Not long! Under a year, just a week shy of a year.

What kind of wedding did you have?Todd: It was at the beach club, not in a church. And the preacher ...Tatiana: She was someone we hired that got her certificate on the Internet. In retrospect we should've just had a friend marry us.Todd: And we had a Latin band and did a rhumba for our wedding dance.

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Did you take lessons?Tatiana: Yeah, we took lessons. We were really glad we took lessons; we had an impressive dip. We had a really good time: good food, good music. We didn't spend a lot on it. I bought my dress for $75 off the rack and I wore it again too!

Any drama surrounding you getting hitched?Tatiana: I think his friends were a little surprised that he picked me because we were really different and I think my friends were surprised I picked him because he actually had a job. [laughs]

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What do you mean you're so different?Tatiana: To give you an example, like six months after we met we went on a bike trip to France, and previously my idea of going to France was you sit in a cafe and smoke and talk and drink wine. Todd meanwhile would do 100-mile bike races. So everyone had to adjust; I had to quit smoking and he had to slow down and probably spend a lot more time in France than he would have otherwise.

What's been the most surprising thing about your marriage?Tatiana: I guess I was pleasantly surprised because my parents had this really bitter divorce. I had in the back of my mind that we might break up or someone might cheat or that we'd fight a lot. And none of that happened!

What's been your biggest fight since getting married?Todd: Our biggest fights involve allocation of duties — who is carrying more weight at one time than the other. Accusing the other of not doing enough.Tatiana: I'd say the worst fight we ever had was when I first got pregnant. I think he freaked out a little bit and I don't even remember exactly what started the fight, but he said something to the effect of, "I wish we weren't having a kid together." And I felt so terribly alone and like we'd made a mistake. But I think it was just nerves.Todd: When I think about what a lot of families fight about, we just don't have all these big family issues like a lot of other folks do.Tatiana: My mother-in-law was nice so we didn't fight about her.Todd: And there was no in-law that someone was trying to loan money to on the side. That's a big issue with a lot of folks, their extended family and some point of pain there, and we don't have that. Another thing people argue about that's a nonissue with us is that neither of us is religious. The basic difference is that one would call themselves an atheist and the other an agnostic. I've known lots of folks that, whether they're the same religion or not, there are all sorts of issues it brings up.

Has your sex life changed since you got married?Tatiana: Well, I think it has slowed down since we first met.Todd: Well yeah, that was a high level! But I think it goes through cycles, like when you're not sleeping and there's a new baby, there's a period where it's hard. It hasn't gone like this [mimes a straight line]; it kind of goes all over the place [moves finger up and down].

Are there any topics that are off-limits in your marriage? Any things you don't talk about or concern each other with?Tatiana: Todd doesn't like to talk to me about my writing because he feels like it's a lose-lose situation.Todd: It is. Lose or very lose. I dunno, writers are sensitive. I think it's stressful to share your work with your spouse. If it's not good or they don't perceive it as good, it's a weird feeling for either party. But you know, I don't like to read things over and over again, and I think she'd like me to read her rewrites more than I do. I feel like after the second time, it's hard for me to have perspective. When she's got a project she's been working on for a long time and it's gone through all these iterations, it's not that I don't want to — I think she thinks that — it's just that I'd rather read it in the beginning and toward the end, and have other credible people involved.

What are you most looking forward to in your marriage?Todd: I think just you have no idea what your boys are gonna end up as, just watching them become adults. Trying to figure out how much guidance to give them and where they end up. I look forward to that. Things are always so different than you anticipate though. Having a kid — at the beginning, it was like holy crap! And it just seems grueling in the first few months and then it gets a lot better and then there are periods where it gets easy and then it gets tough again once they have rigor and school that they gotta deal with. So it's up and down along the way. I would've thought by now we absolutely would not be able to stand a 13-year-old boy, but it's not that way.Tatiana: Yeah, we have to beg him to spend time with us!Todd: Yeah, I thought after age two it mostly goes downhill, and it's just gotten better and better.

I'm happy to hear you say that because I feel like people are always kind of threatening me with my daughter, that she's going to get older. Like, "Enjoy it while it lasts because pretty soon she's gonna be asking for the keys to the car!" and I'm like, "Well, I'm looking forward to that too. I hope that'll happen someday!"Tatiana: I'm that way too! When people say it goes so fast, I know what they mean, but at the same time I don't anticipate them going off to college and never seeing them again. We'll still be a family, right? Spend holidays together? Hopefully if we've done it right, we get to enjoy them as adults, and that'll be a whole different type of interaction. I will say I am looking forward to a little more freedom when they're grown up to travel, even to say, "Hey, where do you wanna go to dinner tonight?"Todd: Well, we had kids a little later in life. I think when [our first son] was born, Tatiana had just turned 35, and I was almost 39, so it's not like we felt that the kids were taking our youth or that we were missing out on all these fun things in life. We'd done them, so I think that's different. And you know I don't have any vision that you retire and sit on a balcony and watch the sunsets and it's awesome. I have no idea what'll happen in 10 years, what we'll do.Tatiana: We both like to be busy; we like our jobs. I plan on continuing to write until my mind goes. The people who live longest and best seem to have something they really like to do so I feel like that's healthy.

What's the best thing you've done for your marriage?Tatiana: Get a full time nanny! [laughs] We don't have one anymore, but we sure needed it when we had one. And then for a long time we had a regular Saturday night babysitter, and I felt like that was important.Todd: Oh yeah, every Saturday night for 10 or 11 years, like literally every Saturday night.
We'd go out even if we didn't want to. [laughs] That was nice, that once a week we could go and be by ourselves and have an adult conversation, kind of hash out things. Sometimes we'd go and argue.Tatiana: Yeah, that's true! Sometimes we'd get in a terrible fight and we'd always go to the same neighborhood restaurant, and the waiter — we were very friendly with him, so we'd always get the same waiter, and some days he'd come over to the table and it'd be so tense, he'd be like, "Woo! I'll come back with some wine."Todd: So I think having a little help so you don't feel chained all the time, that's important.